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Enlightenment Through Understanding

The Daily View: STEM Bailout, Elizabeth Warren, James Altucher

October 12, 2014

Thank the fed, the consumer, free markets, tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, defense spending, and the ivy league for America being exceptional – as much as the libs, in their war on success, want America and its great economy to fail.

In America’s post-2008 hyper-meritocracy and high-IQ society, The software engineer is the most important person in the world right now. That’s why for months I have been posting about the STEM bailout which is a basic income for anyone with an IQ above a certain threshold and or anyone with a degree in a useful field such as engineering, English or physics. Useless fields, such as art history, would not be applicable. High-IQ people are the most likely to succeed, so why not give them a basic income so they can focus their talents on various economically fruitful endeavors (e.g., creating the next Facebook, Google or Tesla) instead of having to worry about paying the bills?

In the smartist era, wealth (as measured by savings and stock equity, not ostentatious possessions such as fancy new cars) and intellect is more valued than ever.

Elizabeth Warren, who talks funny with lots of umms and ahhs, never passes on the opportunity to regale the world with her ignorance of economics, with this quote:

That’s right. They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. Not young people who were struggling to get an education. And it happened over and over and over.

Job loss is a byproduct of technological innovation. If you majored in something useless, don’t be surprised if you cannot find work commensurate with your accreditation.

It’s easy for people, especially liberals, to project their cynicism about the system or society by making blanket statements. For some folks, I suppose, It’s comforting or cathartic to believe everything is doomed or the world is run by idiots. As shown by the super-effective bank bailouts, QE programs, Katrina and the post-911 response, policy makers, when they rise to the occasion, are more competent than commonly believed. According to a consortium of economists, including the famed Robert Barro, the Obama stimulus was an abject failure while TARP, despite being very unpopular, was a resounding success.

The best way to take advantage of a booming stock market is to start a company. Because everything goes up. If you have an extra $50,000 don’t put it into stocks. Put it into yourself. You’ll make 10,000% on that instead of 5% per year.

This advice ignores the fact that that majority of small businesses fail within five years, or that the vast majority of many small businesses that do survive don’t return anywhere near 10,000%. For every Facebook, Starbucks or Walmart there are thousands of businesses that either fail or are just treading water. Many of these businesses that do survive don’t even turn a profit. And if James’ reasoning is sound, by recursion, why not take that 10,000% return and do it over and over? After, like, five iterations you’ll have all the money in the world lol. 5% a year? That sure beats a negative 100% return in a failed small business. You make much more money and with much less effort not trying to create a doomed-to-fail business but by investing in already successful businesses, and you’ll sure as hell make more than 5%. You could have bought Facebook stock at $22 a few years ago and easily tripled your money (200% return). Or invested Facebook in 2005 as Peter Thiel did, and became a billionaire with just a few hundred thousand dollars. You could have invested in Snapchat a year ago and tripled your money. The point is, investing in yourself is a terrible idea when you can make much more money with far less effort investing in existing successes. James is right about the economy being fundamentally sound and about stocks going higher, but this is bad advice.